How do I record with this thing ?

There are actually two answers.

1) If you have purchased the Brahma-in-Zoom, or Large diaphragm version of Brahma and Zoom. You place the recorder/mic where you think the sound is good, check with headphones for the quality of the sound coming into the recorder, and press the record button.

You should first selected sampling rate and bit depth (48 k and 24 bit preferred) select the four channel mode. Make sure the M/S rear pair is set for equal gain. Just remember that ‘front’ of the recorder faces away from you when you can see the meters.

You will get two stereo recordings, called **XY and **MS. The XY is your top pair and MS is bottom. Together they make up the A-format recording. To convert to B-format you can use one of two free programs Brahmavolver or X-volver we provide. There is also the excellent VVencode, but you have to purchase it from VVmic.

2) If you have purchased the free-standing microphone, you first connect the DIN 12 to XLR splitter, and the four XLR connectors to your recorder. If you need longer distance you connect the extension cable first, and the splitter last. Details are in the booklet we provide, but make sure the correct channels are connected, and the levels of the four channels are matched. (Zoom F8 and F4 make this easy, and the both have an ambisonic mode which allows monitoring in stereo while recording four channels of A-format.)

Remember

1) Raw recordings are called A-Format.

2) A-format files have to be encoded to B-Format using special “filters”

and software like Brahmavolver, X volver and VVencode.

3) Ambisonic recordings are level sensitive and require all four channels to be recorded within 1/10th of a dB of each other.

4) Ambisonic recordings are, by nature “isotropic” or spherical. You can rotate your recording if you did it facing the wrong way.

5) Orientation of the microphone must be known to properly decode. How have you mounted the microphone ? Upright, facing the performance, or even hanging downwards ? Your processing software needs to know to produce a correct B format file.

6) A good shockmount, and in outdoors a good windshield, are essential for good recordings

Emmanuele Constantini, (www.ecsound.net) an early user of Brahma-in-Zoom, has published a set of how to articles on processing the recordings. Here they are: